OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former Fox News anchor Chris Wallace is furious with the start of the new streaming service for CNN, known as CNN+, and he is threatening to leave.
On Tuesday, Jon Nicosia, the former managing editor of Mediaite, broke the story of Wallace being disgruntled on Twitter.
“SOURCE: Chris Wallace is ‘having daily breakdowns’ over the ‘miserable launch’ of @CNNplus. Wants a ‘CNN show or is threatening to walk’ they go on. ‘He is having staffers count how many times a day his promo is playing,’” he said.
SOURCE: Chris Wallace is "having daily breakdowns" over the "miserable launch" of @CNNplus. Wants a "CNN show or is threatening to walk" they go on. "He is having staffers count how many times a day his promo is playing"
— Jon Nicosia (@NewsPolitics) April 12, 2022
“@CNNplus struggles to lure viewers in its early days, drawing fewer than 10,000 daily users,” the reporter said.
.@CNNplus struggles to lure viewers in its early days, drawing fewer than 10,000 daily users https://t.co/zdcidVNh8H
— Jon Nicosia (@NewsPolitics) April 12, 2022
“SOURCE CONT’D: ‘He’s telling anyone that will listen he wants Cuomo’s old time slot,’” he said.
SOURCE CONT'D: "He's telling anyone that will listen he wants Cuomo's old time slot"
— Jon Nicosia (@NewsPolitics) April 13, 2022
It is starting to look like Wallace, who was annoyed with Fox News’ coverage of the 2020 election and, in particular, host Tucker Carlson, made the incorrect decision in leaving.
Yesterday news broke that a large number of funds that were set to go into the streaming service are going to be cut, Axios reported.
The news giant was initially planning to invest around $1 billion in the service over the next four years.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are expected to be cut from that original investment total.
To date, around $300 million has been spent on the subscription service, which includes a sizable marketing investment.
The new company’s leadership team still has yet to decide the ultimate fate of CNN+. CNN’s new boss, Chris Licht, will start May 1.
Last week Fox Business News’ Charles Gasparino reported that the new streaming service is a flop
“Breaking: @CNNplus employees bracing for layoffs possibly as soon as May amid projections of lackluster sales of new streaming channel; CNN employees say new streaming channel could be merged into larger @discoveryplus as early as May unless subscriptions pick up,” the Fox Business reporter said.
Breaking: @CNNplus employees bracing for layoffs possibly as soon as May amid projections of lackluster sales of new streaming channel; CNN employees say new streaming channel could be merged into larger @discoveryplus as early as May unless subscriptions pick up 130 @FoxBusiness
— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) March 30, 2022
That was followed by a comment in a tweet by CNN’s rep Matt Dornic who said that the network is doing fine.
“For the record, we are VERY happy with the launch of CNN+ and are only bracing for a long run of success,” he said.
Gasparino replied to it by mocking him because CNN did not respond to his request for comment but their representative tweeted.
“The ‘well oiled’ @CNN PR Flack department won’t respond to my calls for comment but tweets out their response. Nice,” he said.
The “well oiled” @CNN PR Flack department won’t respond to my calls for comment but tweets out their response. Nice https://t.co/jvSLIv3lie
— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) March 30, 2022
Fox News Primetime host Tucker Carlson reportedly had more to do with former colleague Chris Wallace’s departure from the network than previously known.
The former “Fox News Sunday” host was interviewed by The New York Times this week and took a number of swipes at his former place of employment.
Wallace left Fox News to join the new CNN streaming service CNN+ where he will not be covering politics but will be interviewing cultural figures.
“I’m fine with opinion: conservative opinion, liberal opinion,” he said of his decision to leave Fox News. “But when people start to question the truth — Who won the 2020 election? Was Jan. 6 an insurrection? — I found that unsustainable.”
He said that he spent “a lot of 2021 looking to see if there was a different place for me to do my job.”
The CNN host said that he was “so alarmed by Mr. Carlson’s documentary ‘Patriot Purge’ — which falsely suggested the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was a ‘false flag’ operation intended to demonize conservatives — that he complained directly to Fox News management.”
“Before, I found it was an environment in which I could do my job and feel good about my involvement at Fox,” he said. “And since November of 2020, that just became unsustainable, increasingly unsustainable as time went on.”
